Experiment #1: fleece fabric

I've been experimenting with different type of sewing project for the past few months, using various fabrics. One of them is fleece.

Fleece is a durable and soft fabric, usually used to make blankets, hats and so on. It is a man-made fabric, usually made from polyester. A bit expensive compared to flannel, but still... affordable. I think it's perfect for  plushies and pillow-making as it is veeeery soft and comfy, light-weight, fast-drying and sturdy compared to flannel.

Since fleece is part of the stretch knit family of fabrics, I'm not sure if it can be machine embroidered. And after a series of unauthorized tryouts on my customers' pillow orders (hehe), I can say it works okay. I just need to pay extra attention to it, especially when loading the fabric on embroidery hoop, and while embroidering. Yes, it's easier to apply embroidery on flannel (for now). But I believe that will change over time, once I get the hang of it :)

Here's a few things I made with fleece:
(click to see larger image)

Pillows: 1. cupcake pillow (will be added to the catalog later)
2. doodle pillow (illustration provided by the customer ♥)

Plushies: 1. Awan the sheep 2. Rabbit plushy for my niece

Pencil case

So, which one is your favorite? Do let us know :)


p/s: Close-up picture on each product will be added later, once I finish editing them.

Order: 'Together forever' pillow in baby pink

Morning lovelies!

Sorry for the lack of update during this past few weeks. I've been busy sewing; working on pending orders and new product samples.

We've seen enough of the red 'together forever' couple pillows, haven't we? So here's something new for a change; a couple of baby pink 'together forever' pillow, ordered by Nurul Azma last August. The adorable felt characters are made based on her wedding stickers :)

'Together forever' couple pillow

Theme: love

Color: baby pink

Character customization: bride and groom (customer's design)

Thanks Azma for your order. I'm really glad you are happy with it :) And congrats on your wedding! May all your days filled with love and happiness ♥

***

Interested? To order, please fill in the order form. Do visit our catalog for more info on our products :)

Order: 'Together till Jannah' couple pillow

Two sets of couple pillows, ordered by Syairah in August for her sisters' wedding <3 As usual, they are made from flannel, with hand-sewn felt embellishment and machine embroidered wordings.

1st couple pillow:

'Together till jannah' couple pillow

Theme: love

Color: dusty red

Character customization: bride (with hijab) and groom

Other request: add date (at the back)

2nd couple pillow:

'Together till jannah' couple pillow

Theme: 3-leaf clover

Color: purple pink

Character customization: bride (with hijab) and groom

Other request: add date (at the back)

Thanks Syairah for your order. I'm really glad you like it!

* Please note that actual color may vary due to lighting condition and monitor calibration (especially for the 2nd pillow)

Order: Customized friendship pillow

Made this in late July; a customized 'Ukhuwah till jannah' pillow, ordered by Syuhada.

Customized pillow

Color: baby blue

Theme: love / friendship

Wordings: 'Ukhuwah till jannah'

Other customization: 2 girls with hijab and baju kurung (blue & pink), 

holding a heart-shaped balloon with 'syue & mai' names on it.

Order: Personalized name pillow (sweets theme)

Ordered by kak Zu for her 10 years-old daughter's birthday, Aisyah Nabila :) Aisyah loves pink and really into cute stuff! Since kak Zu didn't set the theme and kindly letting me play with my imagination, here's what I've came up for her~

Personalized name pillow with cute gingerbread man, tiny cupcake and sweets!

Close-up: Each applique letter is carefully hand-cut and machine stitched. Also applied machine embroidery to the other half of her names. Neat huh?

Pictures from various angles~

Personalized name pillow

Name: Aisyah Nabila

Theme: Cute + sweet dessert

Color: baby-pink + P6 printed flannel for the back

Bubble dialog: 'happy birthday' + 'from ibu & ayah'

After her birthday,  I got an email from kak Zu, and it really made my day reading this:

The pillow is so adorable. The sewing is neat and my daughter really loves it….Thanks so much for your hard work. It just can’t translate to money

Thanks kak Zu for trusting me on this :)

Order: 'I love U' customized couple pillow

Here's a couple pillow order by Haikal, made in late July. He wants it similar to the together forever couple pillow,  but with the wordings changed to 'I Love U' :)

Couple pillow with machine embroidered wordings, embellished with cute couple made from felt

'I love U' pillow

Theme: Love

Color: Dusty red

Character: girl in hijab + baju kurung; boy in tees

Thanks Haikal for your order. Hope you like it :)

Order: Youtube and twitter bird pillow

This is actually one of my latest order :) Ordered by Aimi in late August. These pillows are made as per her requests: youtube logo and twitter bird applique in front, with full line of wordings at the back. 

The logos are all cut by hand and applied with machine stitching, while the wordings are machine embroidered. Since the words are too long, I've divided them into two parts so they can fit into the hoop. By far, this is the longest time I've ever spent in front of the embroidery machine :)

I love how they turn out. Simple and clean!

Thanks again Aimi for your order. Hope you like it :)

Order: Couple pillow + plushie

Ordered by Nur Syafiqah Maisara in July. This is actually the second set of 'Together Forever' couple pillow that I've made. It's really similar to the one I've made before (here), since she wants it exactly like that. Unfortunately, I've run out of dark-red colored fabric so she choose printed flannel instead for the back.

Together forever (machine embroidered) couple pillow

Color: dark red with P2 fabric at the back

Character customization: girl with hijab & baju kurung, boy in tee

Theme: love

Here's another order of hers; a kawaii turquoise neko plushie. Cute huh? :) Anyone remember it's twin, the grey neko?

Thanks dear for your order. I'm glad your cousin like the plushie :)

Order: Customized birthday pillow (with crown)

Made this in late June. A simple pillow order from Nurulhana for her friend's birthday. As usual, it's made from flannel with felt embellishment. Wordings for "happy birthday" and name are machine embroidered, while the number and the cute girl character is felt appliqued. A crown is added on top of the numbers as requested :)

Customized birthday pillow with felt embellishment

Customized birthday pillow (with name + age)

Theme: cute girl

Color: Dark red

Special request: number '30' with crown on top

Close-up on the stitching~

Back

Thanks Nurulhana for your order. I'm glad your friend likes it :)

New version of 'Together forever' pillow!

We've decided to take a break from hand embroidery for a while. No worries though! We'll be back with lots of new design after improving our hand embroidery skills. But, it might take a while :(

Since the production of hand embroidered pillow is temporarily suspended, we've designed a new version of 'Together forever' pillow which will hopefully please you. 

'Together Forever 2' (machine embroidered pillow)

Size: 12x12 inches

Theme: flower / 3-leaf clover

More details...

It is made from flannel, with machine embroidered wordings and felt flower embellishment. Same as before, you can customized it by adding couple names beneath the 'Together Forever' embroidery. No name is embroidered for this particular pillow since it is merely a sample. There are two themes available: flower (this pillow) and 3-leaf clover (as in the old one).

More picture below:

We're using pastel color: sweet pink and purple embroidery
on baby-pink background

...embellished with light peach and cream colored flower,
topped with tiny pink buttons

Close-up photo of the flowers

Quality printed flannel at the back

So, what do you think of it? Do you prefer this or the old one? I personally love this color combination :)

'Together forever' couple pillow V2

Made this a few weeks back. A "together forever" couple pillow in dark red, ordered by Nurdalina. Actually, I've made something similar to this before. Remember the couple embroidery pillow? But instead of hand embroidering the wordings, I use machine embroidery. 


Neat, huh? :)

'Together forever' (machine embroidered couple pillow)

Theme: love
Color: dark red

Character: girl with hijab & baju kurung; boy in tees

More pictures:

I'm really glad she loves it! She even promote us to her friends :)

Since I like it better than the hand embroidered one, I've decided to add this design to our catalog, replacing the old design. Click here for more info on price, available colors and description. 

And for those who prefer hand embroidery... no worries! I plan to create new designs incorporating different hand embroidery stitches. But, it might take a while since I need to learn and hone my skills first :)

***

Rants: I had problem with my space button on my laptop for quite sometime. Always need to push it a few times to get it to work. But lately, it turns to worst! It's not working at all! Since I'm getting tired of copying and pasting "space", I've popped the key out!! Thank god it's not broken. And now, I need to clean it first before putting it together again~~

Hand vs. machine?

Hello dearies~
Remember when we said we're working on new (improved) version of our pillow designs? Well, here's a sneak peek~ Notice the difference?

Improved pillow design,
using machine embroidery

The older version... a reminder if you forget bout it :)

'Always in love' pillow order, made in late 2011.
Each letter (made from felt) is individually cut and hand-sewn.

Not much difference isn't it? Except for the additional cute felt embellishment and the 'always in' font. If you managed to look past the incompleteness, you'll see that the new version (machine embroidered) is better. Right? I mean, just look it. They're glossy, sleek and super neat! Frankly speaking, I would prefer them over the old one since it exudes elegance and looks rather refined.

What about you? Do share your opinion with us :)

p/s: Not into this? No worries, we still have other designs. Will share with you soon~

Applique baby pillow 2

Morning all!

As promised, more pictures added for our applique baby pillow. Also, we've finally added this adorable looking pillow series to our catalog. Click here for more info on price, available colors and description.

Theme: pony

Theme:  rabbit

Theme: sheep

To order, please fill in the order form here, or email us directly at stitchnknot@gmail.com.

Applique baby pillow

Greetings all! Remember our past post on a cute applique rabbit pillow? Well, we've finally decided to add them to our pillow series!

Love it! Ordered by a friend in early 2012 :)

There are three adorable designs to choose: a rabbit, pony or sheep. I've made the sheep one for my sweet little baby cousin a few weeks ago, but unfortunately, I'm tooo lazy to edit the picture. No worries though... will upload picture sooner or later :P

Applique baby pillow

Theme: rabbit / pony / sheep

Size: 12 x 12 inches

Description: made from flannel; with cute animal applique; 

machine embroidered name and date of birth; 

felt embellishment - padded stars and cloud

Since this is a decorated pillow, do let me know if you want it to be washable, i.e. pillow with removable pillowcase.

On a completely unrelated note, I've finished my 1st patchwork pillow!!~ Yeay! Will show it off in my next post :)

...Can't wait to work on my 2nd patchwork pillow. It's in pink!

Experimenting~

...with flannel, felt and mom's embroidery machine, in middle of the night, a few weeks ago.

I've applied machine embroidery on felt before, just not on flannel. Never thought embroidery on flannel could work. I'm soooo glad I tried this!

And here's my new trademark... padded felt on pillow! Oh, I love it!! I'm using the same technique as used  for boolat phone pouch before. Both cloud and stars are padded on this pillow. Gotta love them as they are so plump and fluffy!

Also, instead of using plain flannel at the back, I'm using printed flannel instead!

The cute embroidered rabbit is happily running/jumping around,
under the hanging cloud and star!

Flower patterned flannel at the back

So, what do you think? Good enough to be added into our customized pillow series? Your comments/suggestions are much appreciated :)